


what are we but a fire

by LeftHook



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Female Alexander Hamilton, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prison, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftHook/pseuds/LeftHook
Summary: “We’ll be back. Sleep well, General,” the guards jeered, and left.A thrill of horror ran through her at the title named aloud and Hamilton stayed frozen, staring at the figure on the floor. The faint light from the prison hallway illuminated the profile she’d seen a thousand times in camp, and her stomach dropped. They’d found Washington.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oh hey who called for the 3k of vague rebellion!au washington h/c? no? I mean, I love me a hamilton sickfic as much as the next person, but balance is key for a healthy diet.
> 
> as usual this is an au of an au (of an au?) that is itself of course not published, in which Hamilton is female, so that's how this one rolled too.

Hamilton huddled her legs further against her chest and pulled her arms into her shirt. Her breath hissed in front of her in a little cloud as she laid her head sideways on her knees. It’d been a long time since someone had looked in her cell, and she was beginning to wonder if the redcoats had forgotten about her.

The only thing to do was sit there and mark off the minutes as the patrols went by. Luckily there was data to be had there, because they’d changed the frequency since the scuffle this morning.

She shifted uneasily. Hours ago there’d been some kind of incident, a big outcry with shouting and scuffling in the adjacent hallway. She was too far down to see it, and the few meager tapped messages from the grapevine of her fellow prisoners had been contradictory.

There was fear in the air, though, clear and sharp in a way she hadn’t felt since they’d been captured a week ago.

Her head came up off her knees at the sound of movement in the hallway. Talking—snickering, and uneven steps, not the steady footfalls of the patrol.

They kept coming all the way down the hallway; in a few moments it was clear they were coming for her cell. She slid sideways into the darkness of the corner, making herself a small a presence as possible. It’d worked so far.

It did again. When the guards opened the cell they didn’t even glance at her. All they did was turn so that two others could drag a third person, jacket torn and hands bound, into the cell. They tossed him roughly to the floor.

“We’ll be back. Sleep well, General,” they jeered, and left.

A thrill of horror ran through her at the title named aloud and Hamilton stayed frozen, staring at the figure until he stirred, dragged his face across the floor, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete.

The faint light from the hallway illuminated the profile she’d seen a thousand times in camp, and her stomach dropped. They’d found Washington.

“Sir,” she whispered, aghast.

At the sound he jerked his head up, and when he saw her in the corner he made an effort to pull himself up onto his knees, difficult as it had to have been with his hands bound behind him. His face was badly bruised, the lower lip split and leaking blood down the front of his shirt, and Hamilton made another noise of dismay.

“Captain Hamilton?” he said, squinting at her.

“Yes sir,” she whispered. “Are you—are you all right, sir?”

He laughed softly. “They had a go at me when they found out. Nothing serious. What about you?”

Hamilton scooted closer. “I’m fine, sir, no one’s laid a hand on me since Gallonsby. I’m not sure they even remembered I’m here, to be honest.”

He held his shoulders stiffly, still proud as she went to investigate the cuffs on his hands.

“Sir—these are standard redcoat issue. I’ve picked them before. In my boot I’ve got—”

“Don’t. Not yet. If they don’t realize they put you in with me it’ll be an advantage.” His fingers flexed in the bonds.

“Yes sir.” She retreated in front of him. “With your permission, sir?” she asked, pulling the white kerchief from around her throat.

One corner of his busted mouth quirked up. “If you like.”

He stayed still as a statue as she cleaned the worst of the blood from his face. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. It made her burn to see him this way. Washington was worth a thousand of those damned, sniveling, cowardly redcoats. They should be begging to lick his boots. Her mouth twisted with outrage.

He snorted through his nose, and she felt the puff of air across her now-bare throat. “We’ll be all right, Captain,” he said. “Don’t look so despondent.”

“But you—the redcoats—”

“Will keep me alive at least a few more days, and Lee and Knox have standing orders in case of my capture.” He spoke in the Amer dialect, just in case; it was sufficiently different from the redcoats’ English that it would be very difficult to parse for any listeners. “They’ll have protocols set in place already.”

She couldn’t keep her fists from curling. “But you! Sir! We can’t—”

“A rebellion can’t run on a single man’s shoulders,” he said, smiling slightly. “You overestimate me.”

Hamilton restrained the heated reply, just barely. But he was wrong, wrong, wrong. Conway and Lee were fumbling blowhards. Washington had twice the head for strategy as both of them put together.

Worse, he was who people listened to, and without it the operation could fall apart a hundred different ways. He was wrong and this was a disaster. Hamilton set her lips.

Washington, peering at her as she dabbed at the cut below his eye, actually began to laugh.

“Sir?”

He grinned. “I can see you object.”

Hamilton flushed, but saw no point in denying it. “Yes, sir.”

“You always were terrible at hiding your opinions,” he said, still smiling as though he hadn’t named the feature that had probably held Hamilton back in the ranks more than any other. “I always did enjoy watching you during strategy sessions. You make the most wonderful faces.”

He’d—seen her? Her flush deepened at the thought of the great general of the West watching her grimace through Lee and Conway’s terrible strategy proposals.

“Sorry, sir,” she muttered.

“No need to apologize, Hamilton,” he said. “Even leadership needs entertainment sometimes.”

Hamilton kept her eyes on the ground. “Any other damage, sir?” she asked.

He winced as he rolled his shoulders. “Nothing to be done about. But thank you, Captain.”

Hamilton shut her mouth once more against pointing out that the way he held himself, as he shuffled over to lean against the cell wall, said otherwise. The back of his jacket was darkened with sweat.

Hamilton followed suit, settling against the opposite wall of the cell. It was small enough, and his legs were long enough, that she was still only a foot or two away from the tips of his boots.

For a few minutes they were silent. She watched the shallow way he breathed. Ribs broken or at least cracked or bruised, she thought.

She closed her eyes. They’d all known Greene might be able to negotiate a trade, since the battle at South Haven two months ago had left them with more redcoat prisoners than they could really deal with.

They had hoped, when she and the regiment were captured, that they could pass him off as a common soldier long enough to smuggle him out. Washington was a legend, a name rather than a face, no pictures and no portraits, spoken of in the vaguest of terms: the broad-shouldered hero of the West, a brilliant mind, a great strategist.

That hope was cold and broken on the rocks now. Hamilton pulled her nose into her knees.

“You’re shivering, Captain. Here.” Washington’s voice jerked her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see him nod at the space at his side.

“Sir, I—couldn’t,” she protested.

“We’ll both be warmer. C’mon.”

She shuffled reluctantly over and leaned gingerly against his side. He smelled like sweat and smoke.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke; Hamilton still consumed in despair, Washington still and silent in his own thoughts, whatever those might be.

“How did they find out?” she said finally, hands tight in her jacket sleeves.

Washington’s mouth flattened. “I don’t think they meant to tell me,” he said, “but I heard one of the guards say a name.”

“A name?” Hamilton’s vision flashed white with anger. “One of us? Who?”

“Arnold,” he said grimly.

Hamilton’s mouth fell open. “No.” He was a capable leader, only a few ranks below Washington. He’d led several successful skirmishes only last year.

“No! That can’t be. He—”

She’d _written_ for him. Once, very late at night during the Five Creeks campaign, he’d seen her writing by candlelight and come to refill the coffee mug beside her, unasked.

Betrayed, in the most fundamental and complete way possible. This could turn the tide. Her vision swam.

She curled her fists into her trousers. “That sneaking, rat-faced, shitgibbon son of a—”

The list of things several miles long she was planning to lay out was interrupted by a series of taps from the back pipe.

Hamilton started forward, and she scrambled over.

“What’s that?” Washington asked.

She held her finger to her lips as she listened.

_Hello—Okay?_ came the message.

“It’s Lt. Colonel Laurens,” she said, and tapped _Hello—Okay—But problem_ in reply.

“She’s stationed in the cell block on the other side,” Hamilton explained. “We’ve got a code going, and then Laurens relays it. The other side has got people in all the cells, so she can get messages around.”

_??_ with an emphasis came back. Hamilton paused, trying to think of how to phrase it in their limited vocabulary.

Washington’s dark brows knitted as she tapped. “What are you saying?”

“I told her there was a problem. She did a long tap and a short one, then three fast clicks—that’s question mark and an emphasis mark. Now I’m doing tappity-tap-tap-tap, that’s ‘here,’ tap three pause, tap tappity, that means you, sir, and tap three pause tap, ‘bad.’”

“That’s quite an impressive code, Captain.” He paused. “Am I bad?”

She pinked. “In bad shape. The discovery is bad,” she clarified, and looked over to see him smiling.

“I don’t look that bad. I’ve been worse,” he said, with faux outrage.

Hamilton stared at him. How could it possibly be worse than captured and behind enemy lines, with their forces in retreat and likely scattered across half of the Western Reaches by now, with his identity exposed and _Banastre Tarleton_ , the Butcher of Wauxhaws, in charge of the garrison? How was he _joking?_

He cleared his throat, looking slightly guilty. “Sorry,” he said.

Laurens’ taps came down the line, and she turned automatically to parse them. _? Bad how much. Need two days._

“Shit,” she said, her voice low. “We’re working on a half-cocked plot to get out of here but it’s still two days out.” They’d definitely be back for Washington long before that, and after that happened it was a tossup; it was possible they could transfer him someplace else, torture him out of his mind, or just kill him. Hamilton chewed her lip.

Washington leaned forward. “Good. Keep working on it. Don’t tell me anything. Get as many out as you can.”

Was it worth it at all if they couldn’t get him out? Hamilton’s ears rang with frustration. “Sir—”

“That’s an order,” Washington said, settling back against the wall and closing his eyes.

She set her lips. An order. Fine.

She tapped out _OK right now—go fast_ , and then came back to sit next to Washington again.

“How did you invent this code so quickly, and without voice contact, Captain?” he asked.

“We had a code almost set up already,” Hamilton said. “In camp. We’ve been friends a long time, Laurens and I. It was just a matter of translating it to sound.”

“Hmm.” Washington considered. “So your existing code was visual?”

“Yes sir. A finger code, meant to signal across a room without attracting attention. Audible would have drawn attention. Though we did also had some sneezes and coughs and such—we had to rework those.”

“Interesting. A code meant to communicate across a room full of people; and neither of you spies. I wonder what it was invented for.”

“Ah.” Hamilton shifted. “We, ah, perhaps used it for parties. Sir.”

“Parties, where coughs would go heard,” he pressed.

Hamilton squirmed. Why was he digging so enthusiastically after this? Did he know? Her face flamed in the dark.

“But perhaps it would be more useful at a meeting,” he said. “A long meeting, where one had to pay attention and not speak for long periods of time, despite one having very particular opinions on most things.”

He did know.

She cringed, her shoulders curling in in the darkness. Why had fate dumped the great General Washington into her cell of all cells, so that he could spend what could very well be his last few hours turning that sharp mind onto her and her every flaw?

He was laughing. “Please, Hamilton, forgive me. That code of yours could very well save lives.”

“Sir,” she mumbled, still mortified and planning to remain so until she either rotted to death in this prison or threw herself off a cliff, whichever came first.

“Don’t get me wrong, Captain,” he said. “I’m giving you a hard time because I’ve been very impressed with your work. I’d meant for a while now to speak to your commanding officer about having you do some work for me, if he could spare you.”

“He could spare me,” Hamilton said immediately, and Washington snorted softly, his eyes still closed. “I’d be happy to work for you, sir. Just say the word. I’ve got lots of ideas.”

One side of his mouth rose in a smile. “I’m looking forward to hearing them.”

They both heard the unspoken addendum: if they got out of here, that was. Hamilton sighed. It was all about timing, wasn’t it, and so far hers hadn’t been lucky.

“Hamilton,” he said, after a long while. “Tell me about your home.”

“My home?” she said in surprise. “York City. You know it well, sir.”

“You were born there?” he asked.

“No,” Hamilton admitted, and slid her legs out in front of her. “Zapatilla. It’s far. Really far. A little island off the south coast.”

“Hot?”

“Yeah.” Sweltering, almost always, though winds blew across the entire island and unless you were in the deepest darkest parts of the forest, there was always a cross-breeze.

“Tell me more.”

She looked over. His eyes were still closed, but there was a furrow across his brow, and he shifted slightly, in clear discomfort between the damaged ribs and the hands still bound behind him.

“Yes sir.” She told him about Zapatilla, about the birds that stole your food if you didn’t watch it closely enough, about the bugs that came in massive droves twice a year as though summoned by demons and then disappeared, about the tiny little purple fruits that grew on long stalks and that she didn’t know the name in English for because she’d never seen them here.

When her throat ran dry, she looked over at him again. The faint light outlined his jaw, his head tilted back against the wall. The furrow between his eyebrows had eased a little.

They came for him the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

Hamilton started pacing an hour after they took him, and she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. It was probably a bad idea because they hadn’t brought water since the guards had changed the day before, and her mouth was drier and drier every hour, but she couldn’t help it. The manic energy that had been stifled since she had been confined to this cell bubbled over and she paced and paced and did push-ups until her arms hurt, and then she paced some more. 

Laurens had sent only a few messages; she hoped it was because they were working on the plan and couldn’t spare the time. But what if the opportune moment came, and Washington wasn’t back yet? 

Finally, after hours and hours, she heard someone coming down the hall. She was up in a flash, sliding into the darkest corner.

The relief was fleeting. The toes of Washington’s boots dragged as they came down the hallway; it looked like they were mostly carrying rather than leading him.

When they dumped him in this time, hands still cuffed behind him, he groaned softly and curled forward around his middle; didn’t even seem to remember she was there. 

It was torture to stand there unmoving until the guards’ footsteps faded down the hallway. At long last they were gone, though, and she darted forward to his side.

From here she could see that his eyes were screwed shut and his breathing came in sharp, uneven pants. It was clear there was something terribly wrong with him; but aside from a little more blood on his face, she couldn’t see what it could be. 

“Washington?” she whispered, her hand hovering over his shoulder. “Sir?”

His eyes cracked. After a long, long moment he licked his bloody lip and said, unsteadily, “Hamilton?” 

“Yes, sir. It’s me,” she said. “What’s—what did they—”

He hissed out a breath, curling forward again. Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose. “Drugs,” he forced out. 

Hamilton’s stomach went cold. _Shit._ “What kind of drugs?” 

“Don’t—know.” He panted, fingers curling and uncurling in the cuffs. 

She swallowed dryly. “Did…” 

“I don’t—I don’t think they got anything,” he said, but when he looked at her there was anguish in his eyes, the pupils blown, his hands trembling. Fear laced through her insides. “Spoke in Amer. They…didn’t…” 

Hamilton sent a prayer heavenward that whatever they’d done hadn’t been enough. Tarleton. She curled her fingers into fists. They all knew his reputation, but that he’d stoop this low, to treat a captured leader this way—

Washington made a strangled sound in the back of his throat as some new wave hit, pressing the side of his face against the floor. Hamilton scooted closer, hands fluttering helplessly by her side. 

After a moment, thinking of the times her mother had been sick, she reached out tentatively to lay her hand on the back of his neck. He flinched. She yanked it back away. 

Washington gulped. “No—it’s okay, it—helps,” he panted, so she reached back carefully to put her palm back. 

This was awful. _Laurens—hurry,_ she thought frantically, crouched over her general as he shivered under her hands. Those fucking cowards. They styled themselves more _civilized,_ and they had pumped him full of some unknown poison and dumped him in a cell, still bound like an animal. 

Hamilton clenched her teeth. Even if they’d managed to get information out of Washington, it wasn’t all lost. They could make it right if they could only get him out of here. 

“Here, sir,” she said, and helped him lift his head so that it was at least pillowed on her thigh. 

“We’ve almost got the plan ready, don’t worry, sir,” she told him, low and fierce. “They moved the timetable forward. Bribed a guard whose sister is on our side. Just waiting on the right moment.” 

He swallowed. “Good work, soldier,” he rasped, and Hamilton flushed with pride. 

“It was mostly Laurens, sir, she—”

As if by magic, Laurens’ taps came down the pipe. Hamilton’s head swung swiftly around. 

_!Soon—Washington?_

If she stretched her hand she could just reach. _Yes—bad—hurry,_ she tapped.

“That’s her,” she babbled as she did. “We’re almost ready, just hold on, sir, we’ll get you out of here.” 

He nodded, and then lurched forward off her leg. Hamilton started in alarm but all he did was lean over to retch miserably, shoulders heaving. Nothing came up, so either he’d done it a lot already or he had nothing in his system to begin with. Hamilton would have cheerfully murdered somebody’s little old grandma for a cup of water. 

“S-sorry,” he whispered, between shudders, and she tightened her hand on his neck. “It’s their fault, those fucking animals,” she blazed. “This is a clear breach of the Code.” 

He huffed something like a laugh, wincing, and leaned back against her leg. “Still…angry.” 

“Always, sir,” Hamilton said, but she laid her hand gently on his side. His ribs fluttered beneath her hand.

Somewhere between two and five eternities passed. Washington didn’t retch again, but he didn’t say anything, either. Hamilton composed a furious screed for the newspaper on the sanctimonious hypocrisy of redcoats in her head, scrapped it and started over, and then wrote a scathing rebuttal to an imaginary response. 

Washington finally stirred, curling tighter on himself. 

“Sir?” She patted his cheek gently. 

His brow twitched. “…Martha?” he whispered, almost too low to hear, and Hamilton winced at the name of his talented, strategically-minded partner, missing in action in the Battle of Port Calais a little over three years ago. 

“No, sir, it’s me, it’s Hamilton,” she said. 

He shivered. “Oh,” he said softly. 

Hamilton was the worst person on earth suited for this. She longed for Eliza, Burr, Angelica, anyone, someone who was good at this.

She licked her cracked lips again. “Sir,” she said. “Do you want to hear more about Zapatilla?” 

“….Yes,” he rasped. “Please.”

She told him about the flowers that twined down the tree trunks, about the sound of people singing, slow and steady and harmonized in the fields, and the more joyous songs they sang in worship. About the secret path to the very top of the highest peak on the island. About the sound of water, almost constant, between the steady low swish of the ocean against the shores and the rushing waterfalls and the rain that dripped from every shivering leaf after the storms.

 _!Now,_ Laurens tapped out into the pipe behind her, and she sent up a quick prayer. Then she pulled off her jacket and folded it to slide under Washington’s head instead of her thigh, so that she could shift to pull the strip of metal out of the sole of her boot. 

She picked the lock on Washington’s cuffs, her fingers trembling only slightly. He was quiet, limp under her hands, his breathing labored. 

As she worked she told him about the houses painted in bright colors, and the little tiny crabs that scuttled between the waves at night, and the way she used to lick salt off her skin after swimming in the ocean. 

Down the hall, she could hear shouting, faint at first but growing nearer. The smell of something acrid drifted down the hallway. 

The cuffs fell away. Washington barely moved. 

She told him about how to climb a palm tree trunk using a twist of rope from coconut fibers. Her voice was going to give out any moment. She told him about the sound of the wind rushing through the trees at night. She told him about the little strings of shells that her mother wore around her ankle, and the way she sounded when she laughed.

And when Laurens’ dirty, grinning face appeared at the bars of the cell, she was ready.

**Author's Note:**

> i did reinvent hamilton’s home island as I made up a bunch of shit about it. Banastre Tarleton, however, is real, as I clearly could not make up a name like that, and may or may not deserve his reputation for brutality, depending on which historian you ask.
> 
> title, of course, from the hot and sharp and lovely [revenge](http://www.seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/01/03/revenge/) by elisa chavez. 
> 
> p.s. in this verse, while i have been reluctant to name a time period, pretty sure GW has chris jackson's earring. fyi.
> 
> p.p.s. i'm on tumblr at [onelefthook](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/onelefthook), come yell with me about the dang revolutionary war!


End file.
